On the presidents' museum trails

The first drive takes you to four presidential museums in four states; the second drive is a one-president trip to Michigan.

DRIVE 1:

Herbert Hoover National Historic Site

Drive west on Interstate Highway 80 to the Hoover at West Branch, Iowa, near Iowa City. You'll go about 212 miles.

Curator Timothy Walch says some Iowans to this day are so bitter about their native son's role in the Depression that they refuse to see his museum. Regardless of what anyone thinks of Herbert Hoover's presidency--and visitors can register their own thoughts, then hear what historians say--few who have held that office can match his accomplishments outside of it. During and shortly after World War I, Hoover led private relief efforts that fed a billion people in 57 countries. Thank-you pictures colored by some of the children who owed their lives to his management skills and compassion are on display, as are empty flour sacks embroidered by Belgian women in appreciation for the full ones that fed their families.

The museum also devotes an instructive section to Hoover's underappreciated service as commerce secretary. Today we take for granted that milk bottles and tires come in standard sizes, that stoplights will tell us when it's safe to go, that building codes will protect homes and neighborhoods. Hoover was the genius behind all of them.

The poignant section that focuses on the Great Depression is titled "From Hero to Scapegoat" and gets that right. The museum presents some evidence that Hoover's responses after the stock market crash weren't all bad--he spent more money on public works in four years than his predecessors had in 30, and the Democratic Congress refused to pass his remedial legislation. But it also makes the point that this was a man who believed in the power of right-acting people to get the country going again. Padlocked bank doors from 1933 are a reminder of that theory's limits.

Also on the site are the two-room cottage in which Hoover was born, the Quaker Meeting House his family attended, a replica of his father's blacksmith shop, several homes from the period, and the presidential library and gravesite.

It's nearly 500 miles west from West Branch on I-80, then south to Abilene, Kan., so you'll want to plan a stop along the way. Omaha is a good midpoint, with three options for the kids: the zoo, the Strategic Air & Space Museum in nearby Ashland and the Arbor Day Farm in Nebraska City.

Begin your visit in Abilene by walking through the three-bedroom home in which the president and his high-achieving brothers were raised; it's spacious by comparison to Hoover's. Be sure to notice the patchwork quilts that go back generations. End it with a stop at the inspiring chapel where Ike and Mamie are buried.

Take time to read the three quotes that set the scene, especially this one, from a 1953 speech: "Every gun made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

Your visit to the museum will prove daunting, given the breadth of its coverage. If you're a war buff, you'll enjoy the collection of guns, uniforms, artifacts and letters home. Don't miss the video on the construction of the artificial harbor necessary to D-Day landing. And don't overlook Eisenhower's handwritten apology intended to be issued in the event the invasion failed; it says the blame was solely his.

If you grew up in the '50s, you'll feel as if you're journeying through a time warp, when Elvis was king, the Soviets were winning the space race, and "I Love Lucy" was so popular that Marshall Field's quit running Monday sales because the customers would rather watch the redhead.

The museum will remind you that the Eisenhower presidency was hardly an idyllic time. There are film clips of the Hungarian revolution (Ike rejected CIA entreaties to intervene); the Suez Canal seizure (Eisenhower told France, England and Israel to back off); China's incursions in the Pacific; Castro's rise in Cuba; and the Soviet Union's capture of spy plane pilot Gary Powers. Not persuaded? Then check out the "Duck and Cover" cartoons and the bomb shelter.

In a museum full of "don't misses," here's a final one: the desk Eisenhower used as president. Look closely, and you can see the small holes through which wires were strung so he might record his conversations--little suspecting that two decades later the process would do in his vice president.

Truman Presidential Museum & Library

It's a 3-hour, 164-mile journey east on Interstate Highway 70 to Independence, Mo., the Kansas City suburb where Harry Truman stood on his porch at the end of his presidency and declared, "It's good to be back home . . . . I hope I won't cause too much trouble while I'm here."

You can see a black-and-white film clip of that declaration, which captures the personality of a president who has undergone a historical rebirth. Once derided as an inept successor to FDR, Truman is now appreciated for the critical decisions he made and the strength of character that underpinned them.

The focus of much of the museum is on these decisions, beginning with dropping the atomic bomb. Video monitors set the scene with silent footage of the fighting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa and the race to build the bomb. A map of Japan that Roosevelt and Truman used to plan the final campaign is displayed, as is the president's handwritten note authorizing the bombing of Hiroshima. You can hear critics, supporters and Truman himself assess his decision.

The museum also explores Truman's decisions to recognize Israel, desegregate the military and establish a federal loyalty program. That last presentation takes place in a setting resembling a congressional hearing or interrogation room. You may be asked to explain your views on free speech and privacy versus the need of the nation to be secure. The subject is as chillingly apt now as it was during the Cold War.

Given the sober subjects of most of the museum, an exhibit called "America 1952" offers welcome respite. Life magazine covers and layouts provide the wallpaper, videos of period ads provide the chuckles, and Ella Fitzgerald 's "Heart and Soul" provides just that.

Go east on I-70 and north on Interstate Highway 55 and you'll be in Springfield in about 330 miles.

The wily country lawyer Abe Lincoln left Springfield for his presidential inauguration in 1861 and returned only in death. If you cry when you file past his flower-covered casket in a mock-up of the old Capitol Rotunda, you won't be alone, nor will it be the only presentation causing tears. The scene of the president bowed over the dying Willie, as the orchestra plays for guests on the other side of the open door, is gut-wrenching. The faces of the frantic family at the slave auction make for powerful theater.

The Lincoln is a stunning museum. As many Illinoisans know, it was developed with the help of designers who've done work for Disney, which explains both the life-like images and the technical prowess. In one theater, Holavision sends up ghosts to speak of times past, as if there aren't enough of those around as is. Another features six screens, seats that shake, gunshots and cannon smoke. There's a whispering gallery that displays letters and cartoons so vile (Lincon's called "the Illinois ape") as to make today's political discourse seem genteel. The halls of the gallery whisper rumors as they slant and close in on those who walk through it.

There's a performing map that runs through the entire Civil War in four minutes, a mock-up of Ford's Theatre that makes it clear just how far John Wilkes Booth had to jump to the stage after shooting Lincoln, and a handwritten copy of the Gettysburg Address. But this is less a place to see notable things than an opportunity to become reacquainted with a president who, as a film narrator says, "became a legend" and hasn't been seen "clearly" since.

The Lincoln museum is worth saving for last on this loop. The return trip to Chicago is 202 miles.

For Chicagoans, the last easily drivable presidential museum is the Ford, in Grand Rapids, Mich., 175 miles away. (Ford's presidential library is located in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan.)

Ford became president because of Watergate, and Watergate is, of course, center stage in this museum. You'll see tools used in the 1972 burglary, one of those recording devices that confirmed Richard Nixon's fate, and Ford's notes from conversations with Nixon. Don't miss the excellent multi-screen history of the burglary and the events that followed. From the Watergate gallery, move to the cabinet room for a video that explains Ford's decision to pardon Nixon. You'll be seated around the cabinet table for this.

Most presidential museums have some sort of Oval Office mock-up, but this one is unusually well-done. You'll hear actors portraying Ford, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and others describe a typical White House day. Lighting will make you think the sun is rising and setting. Elsewhere, you can take a holographic room-by-room tour of the White House.

One of the most moving parts of the exhibit focuses on the fall of Vietnam. If you're over 45, you may catch your breath at the sight of the actual staircase atop the U.S. embassy in Saigon that carried Americans--and not enough Vietnamese--to waiting helicopters.

Speaking of the era, be sure to stroll through the 1970s Gallery. You'll swear someone snuck into your closet and carried off your bell bottoms, tie-dyes, platform shoes and love beads.

While you're in Grand Rapids, visit the Van Andel Museum Center, which uses the Grand Rapids furniture industry to tell the broader story of the growth--and demise--of American manufacturing.